Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: trinity or three distinct beings?

There is a question I regularly get. From friends, from curious acquaintances, sometimes from strangers on the internet. It always sounds about the same: ‘But you don't believe in the trinity, do you? Then you're not really true Christians, are you?’

I take that question seriously. It deserves an honest answer.

Because let me be clear right away about what this piece is not. It is not an attack on people who profess the trinity. I have enormous respect for those who live and believe from that conviction. The trinity has centuries of deep theological thought behind it, and people who profess it do so in complete sincerity. I am not going to tell anyone here that they are wrong.

But I get this question too often to remain silent about it. And honestly, this is for me one of the aspects of my faith for which I am most grateful — because it gives me an understanding of God, of Jesus, and of why we are here that sustains me every day.

So let me try to explain what we believe. And why it means so much to me.

Where does the trinity come from?

This is the question that sometimes surprises people. The word ‘trinity’ is not found anywhere in the Bible. Not in the Old Testament. Not in the New. It is a theological concept that was formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD — convened by Emperor Constantine to resolve a theological conflict.

But that doesn't mean it came out of nowhere. The people who came to Nicaea had centuries of serious Bible study behind them. They wrestled with real questions that the Bible raises. And those questions are legitimate — they deserve an honest answer.

How does one arrive at the Trinity from the Bible?

To understand this, you need to empathize with the early Christians. They faced an enormous theological challenge.

On the one hand, they inherited Jewish monotheism — the steadfast conviction that there is only one God. Deuteronomy 6:4, the great Shema of Israel: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’ One God. No discussion.

On the other hand, they had experienced Jesus — or heard about him — and could not help but conclude that he was more than just a man. He forgave sins, which only God could do. He said things like ‘Before Abraham was born, I am’ — John 8:58 — using the sacred name of God I Am that God had revealed to Moses. He rose from the dead. Thomas fell before him and cried out ‘My Lord and my God’ — John 20:28 — and Jesus did not correct him.

And then there was the Holy Spirit — described as personal, as a comforter, as someone who teaches and testifies and can be grieved. Not a force but a person.

How did early Christians reconcile all this? Three entities, each seeming divine — but only one God.

The solution that developed over centuries was the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods but one God in three persons. Distinct in person but identical in essence and substance. Each fully God. Together only one God.

The texts used for this are understandable. John 1:1 — ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ John 10:30 — ‘I and the Father are one.’ Matthew 28:19 — the baptismal formula in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Colossians 2:9 — ‘For in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.’

These are real texts with real theological weight. The people who formulated the Trinity were no fools. They tried to describe something that human language actually transcends — the nature of God himself.

The problem arose when this description was cast not in biblical language but in Greek philosophical language. Terms like homoousios — of the same substance — do not come from the Bible but from Neoplatonic philosophy that dominated the intellectual world in the third and fourth centuries. The concept of an abstract, incorporeal, unchangeable being that transcends all categories — that is Plato, not Paul.

And that's exactly where the question begins for me. Because if we read the Bible without that philosophical lens — what do we really see then?

What the Bible literally says

Let me take a few texts that I genuinely love — not as debate ammunition but as windows to something that deeply moves me.

The baptism of Jesus. Matthew 3:16-17. Jesus stands in the water of the Jordan. The Holy Spirit descends as a dove. And the voice of the Father sounds from heaven: 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

Three distinct manifestations. Simultaneously. In three different places.

If Father, Son and Holy Spirit are literally one being of the same substance — how can that one being then be in the water, simultaneously descend as a dove, AND speak from heaven? The literal reading of this verse unmistakably describes three distinct entities.

The death of Stephen. Acts 7:55-56. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven. And he saw — not one being, but two. 'The glory of God and Jesus, standing at the right hand of God.' Jesus stands next to God. Distinct. Separate.

The prayer of Jesus in John 17. This is the most powerful for me. Jesus prays to the Father. He speaks of the glory he had with the Father before the world existed. He asks the Father for things. And he prays that his disciples may be one — 'just as you, Father, are in me and I in you.'

If John 10:30 — 'I and the Father are one' — proves that they are literally one being, then John 17 proves that all disciples are also literally one being with God. Which no one means. The unity is a unity of purpose, of character, of will, and of love. Not unity of substance.

And then John 20:17. After the resurrection — in his glorified, risen state — Jesus says to Mary Magdalene: 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' In his most glorified moment, Jesus still calls the Father his God.

There is one more textual critical note I cannot omit. The most explicit Trinity verse in the entire Bible — 1 John 5:7, which speaks of 'the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one' — is missing from all early Greek manuscripts. It only appears in late Latin translations. Virtually all modern Bible scholars — Catholic and Protestant — acknowledge that this is a later insertion. This is not an LDS argument. It is standard academic biblical scholarship.

What we believe

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are two distinct, glorified beings — one in purpose, in character, in love, and in glory, but not one in substance. The Holy Spirit is a third, distinct person.

This is not a new doctrine. It is what Joseph Smith literally saw when, as a fourteen-year-old boy, he knelt and prayed in a grove in upstate New York. Two beings. Distinct. The Father and the Son. He described not a philosophical concept but what he beheld with his own eyes.

And the early Church Fathers — pre-Nicaea — are surprisingly consistent with this description. Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian — they described Father and Son as distinct beings in a way much closer to our doctrine than to the later Nicene formulation. The 'orthodoxy' of Nicaea was a decision — not an unbroken apostolic tradition.

Why this means so much to me

This is where it gets personal.

For this is not just a theological debate about the correct interpretation of Greek articles. This touches the core of who God is, who I am, and why I am here.

If God is an abstract, philosophical trinity — one being in three persons without distinction — then it is difficult to understand what it means for us to be His children. It is difficult to imagine how Jesus was truly human, truly suffered, truly died — if at the same time He is the full infinite being that sustains the universe.

But if Heavenly Father is a glorified, loving being with a body of flesh and bone — glorified and immortal — and if Jesus Christ is His Son, distinct from Him, who truly had a mother, truly grew up, truly suffered in Gethsemane, truly died, and truly rose again — then everything changes.

Then the Atonement is not an abstract legal transaction but an act of someone who truly knew what pain was. Alma 7:11-12 describes how he took upon himself pains and afflictions — not as a symbol but as a reality — 'that he might know how to succor his people.' He understood us because he had lived through it.

Then prayer is not a conversation with an an undefinable being but a conversation with a Father who knows me. Who sees me. Who was there before I came here.

And then the question 'why am I here' has an answer that can lift me out of bed every morning: I am here because I am an eternal being, child of a glorified Father, who lives this life as a necessary step in an endlessly greater journey. Not as an accidental product of blind forces. Not as a sinful fly on cosmic flypaper that needs to be saved from the wrath of an abstract deity.

But as a child. With a home. With a destiny.

Back to the question

Are we Christians?

We believe in Jesus Christ. In his birth, his life, his Atonement, his death, his resurrection. We take his name upon us at baptism. We try to follow his example. We testify that he lives — not as a metaphor but as a resurrected, glorified reality.

What we do not believe is the fourth-century philosophical formulation that describes his nature in terms the apostles themselves never used.

Is that enough to be a Christian? I think so. But I'm not going to force anyone to agree with me.

What I do is live by this understanding. Every day. And every day it gives me more than I expect.

If you want to know more — the Bible texts, church history, the early church fathers, the theology of the plan of salvation — please feel free to contact me. I am happy to have this conversation. Not to prove a point but because I sincerely believe that this is worth exploring together.

Because ultimately it's not about the correct formulation. It's about who God really is. And whether we know him.